Dear Readers,

My name is Melissa also known to Taylor and his Big Brother Tim as Aunt Miss. I shouldn't have to be making a memorial page for Taylor, I should be somewhere watching a movie with him, watching him play a video game, listening to him tell me a story or working on his web page with him giving me specific instructions as to what he wants, chasing him around for something fun to do, watching him "train his dog Pee Wee", mimic his big brother Tim on Tim's drums, listen to him question his mother forever, listen to him ask Nana and Pappy for ice cream, hot dogs, and chocolate milk, ask Poppie for some money for candy, hang out with his Grammy, hang out with his Uncle Travis and his family to play with his little cousins, listen to him tell Uncle Bill where he wanted to go on their next "vacation" as well as "flirt" with his big brothers' girlfriend Lindsay, and me well who knows anything from can we make a music cd to can we go here or can we go there and what I wouldn't do to see him follow his daddy around just being daddy's shadow at whatever daddy was doing, he and daddy were best friends. Unfortunately because of a mother and fathers irresponsibility and negligence and their sons irresponsibility, negligence and to a point arrogance we will never get to do these things with this precious boy ever again.

Here Is Taylor's Story Of August 5th 2007


Taylor went to spend the weekend at his cousins house and called his mommy on Sunday morning and asked if he could stay all week because summer vacation was almost over and he really didn't get to do much all summer. Mommy at first said no but eventually gave and said he could stay. Well his cousins daddy worked 3 hours out of town and on Sundays his cousins mommy would take his daddy and drop his daddy of in the town where he worked and she decided that she was going to let the boys at home with the cousins 14 year old sister while she took the cousins daddy and dropped him off. Well when they left the boys were outside playing in the rain, they got cold and then went inside. Shortly after this he and his cousin went upstairs to go play video games but for some reason Taylor's cousin went into his parents room and picked up one of his father's many guns which were not secured. His cousin finding the gun not loaded put the gun down and was leaving the bedroom and on the way out found a single bullet and went back to load the gun, unload the gun and load the gun again. Taylor at this point was still in the hallway and never entered the room, never touched the gun or bullet. Taylor was deathly afraid of guns. It's been said by his cousin that Taylor told him not to point the gun at him and for some reason his cousin continued to do so. Now from this point I am unsure of what happened next, however his cousin pulled the trigger and shot Taylor, killing him instantly. Now after this fatal shot, Taylor's mommy, daddy, big brother, uncle and his nana had to drive 3 hours away to go to the police station where his cousin lived and also to go to the hospital to view Taylor's body. I, myself was not present but I can only tell you that was the most devastating thing that my sister,brother-in-law and my mother and brother and nephew had to go through.

Now if it's not bad enough that we lost Taylor so senselessly, the story goes on.... there was a little family own store that the owner of the store knew my brother in law and my sister and  put a jar on his counter for donations to help Taylor's family and to donate to Taylor's memorial fund. My sister and brother in law had nothing to with the store owner putting this jar out, he did it on his own. Well somebody, 2 weeks after we laid Taylor to rest went into the store distracted the clerk by asking for some food to be made, stole the jar. Now, there was not a big amount in the jar but that's not the point, its the principal of the thing. The store owner angry at the situation called the local television station. A newsperson came and interviewed him and what happened next will warm your heart. The television station posted the story on their web site,  which in the morning was visited by a local radio station,  in which the radio personality was angry and decided to speak about it on the air. A man, whom we still don't know called into the radio station  after hearing the story and wanted to replace the money that was taken. From that point on they were playing a lot of Taylor's favorite songs which was kicked off with the theme song from his favorite movie "Just a Good Ol' Boy" from the Duke's of Hazzard, Taylor's big brother Tim called the radio station and spoke to the radio personality and gave him a list of music Taylor liked and they continued with their little tribute to Taylor. I too called the radio station and wanted to thank the radio personality and the listening community for all their kind words about Taylor.The radio personality asked me if I could get Taylor's parents, family and friends together and have them meet at the store where his memorial jar was taken from that afternoon because he and one of his co-hosts of his show were going to come to the store and they were going to give away for small donations tee shirts from the radio station and they were also going to give away 40 sets of Toby Keith tickets. I tell you all, I was amazed and grateful as well as the rest of his family for all of their support that the community gave us that afternoon. The money that was raised in the two hours from this was unbelievable. If that wasn't enough, the radio personality came to me at the end of the event and said " You know we as a community know a little about what happened to Taylor and we have seen pictures of Taylor but we don't really know who Taylor was so I would like if you would come to the radio station in the morning and speak about Taylor." Now I didn't feel it was my place to do this but I knew my sister and her husband just couldn't so after speaking to my sister I grabbed one of our childhood friends who my sister remains close with until this day and we went to the radio station and did a half show that we talked about nothing but Taylor. I guess by now you are wondering what we said about him if you didn't know him or his family, well let me just give it to you as best as I can remember.

Our Thoughts On Taylor

Taylor was the type of child that his smile lit up a room, he had contagious laughter and he had a mischievous smile that just made you grin from ear to ear. He always had a way of bringing you up when you were down even if you didn't want to be brought up. Taylor was a giving child, he never really asked for anything but he always wanted to give you something even if it was just his company. Taylor always tried to give his wrestling team mates the speech of not walking off the mat angry if they lost, because they were a winner just for having the courage to walk on the mat so win or lose they needed to smile coming off the mat. There was the story of the little boy and his mother who went to the school Taylor attended to look around to see if it met the little boys educational needs and Taylor approached the little boy and his mother and said " This is a good school, I think you should come here and if you do we are gonna be best friends".  Truth be told the little boy did go enroll in that school and they were best friends.  At one point my sister spoken to Taylor's teacher and she said she will always remember at least once a week she would have the class write a story and she can't remember any of his stories ever being about anything but  a dodge charger and going fast . She said she could always count on reading his stories and his stories would be about speed and cars. I guess you could say or should I say Taylor's family believes that Taylor was just a good ol' boy.

Now with that background on Taylor let me explain a few other things... Taylor was only 11 and the cousin that shot and killed him so senselessly was 13. We have yet to go to court to see what this juvenile will receive as a sentence. What I will say is that in the state of Pennsylvania his cousin will not be charged as an adult because he is only 13. In the state on Pennsylvania they have to be 14 in order to be tried as an adult. He will be charged as a juvenile and the charges have been filed, those charges were as followed: involuntary man slaughter, reckless endangerment of another person and aggravated assault. Now with that being said yes he is being charged with these crimes but as a juvenile which to me and many others doesn't make sense because once he reaches 18 his record will be sealed and he will basically have a clean record. Now as I said we haven't gone to court yet and we don't know what his punishment will be but it has been said that the juvenile district attorney is going to recommend that he only receive "heavy"counseling and probation. My question is what responsibility is that teaching him as well as what kind of accountability is that teaching him. Now that's not to say that somewhere along this process we are going through that someone won't recommend that he be placed in a juvenile facility but at this point no one has.

Another thought...

I feel the parents of Taylor's cousin should be charged with neglect and should be charged with not securing those weapons. I don't know if this will happen but those are just my thoughts.

So with this I leave you Taylor's Story.